Nina Fatigati joins father’s medical practice

Published Jul 29, 2014 at 10:34 am
(Updated Jul 29, 2014 at 10:34 am)

Dr. Mario Fatiati and Dr. Nina Fatigati
Courtesy St. Clair Hospital

Nina M. Fatigati remembers the first time she accompanied her father, Dr. Mario Fatigati, on Take Your Daughter To Work Day when she was in first grade. She even recalls that she wore a blue dress. She also remembers making hospital rounds and standing outside a patient’s room while her dad discussed medical issues with the family.

On Aug. 1, when Nina goes to work with her father, she will wear a white laboratory coat, now as a physician and not as an excited first grader in a blue dress. After recently completing her residency in internal medicine, she joins the practice at St. Clair Medical Services Fatigati/Nalin Associates in the Peters Township Outpatient Center on Washington Road.

She’s thrilled, and so is her father. Nina is the only one of Mario and Carole Progar Fatigati’s daughters – Amy and Cara are the others – to follow in their father’s footsteps.

“Clearly I’m pleased,” Mario Fatigati said. “To have a child follow in the practice is a great thing, but it’s only right if they want it.”

When patients call the office for an appointment or for information, Nina said she expects a distinction will be needed as to which Fatigati the patient is referring. The first time someone referred to her as Dr. Fatigati after graduating from medical school, Nina said she looked over her shoulder because she believed her father was standing behind her.

After completing her residency at UPMC in late June, Nina took the month of July off to relax and to prepare for her “one long day” of testing the first week of August with the American Board of Internal Medicine.

The 2003 graduate of Peters Township High School and 2007 graduate of Case Western Reserve University, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 2011.

Her father, she said, did not encourage her, or discourage her, from entering the field of medicine. “He encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do,” she said.

Mario Fatigati has been practicing medicine since 1986 after graduating from medical school in Italy. Mario, soon to be 60, is a native of Cecil Township. He graduated from Canon-McMillan High School.

“I like what I do and I like people,” Mario said. “[Nina] has similar interests.”

Her sisters work in the business field. However, Nina’s husband, Dr. Chris Pray, is a cardiac fellow at UPMC. In the practice, Nina retains her maiden name.

When asked if the couple, who live in a loft in Pittsburgh, have children, Nina smiled and said, “No, but we have plenty of loans to pay back.”

Mario said he sees multi-generational families in his practice.

“I enjoy the process,” he said. “If you have that inside of you, that’s OK, and she has that inside of her.”

While in medical school, Nina said she left her options open for a speciality, but eventually settled on internal medicine, like her father, because of the opportunity to develop a long-time rapport with her patients.

In her youth, Nina said she felt she would explore studying Spanish. That came to an abrupt end when she realized she never learned to speak the language. Through her volunteering efforts in high school and college, she found herself leaning toward medicine.

After intensive study for eight years post high school, plus years in residency, Nina said when she joins the practice, it will be “her first real job.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m nervous, but it’s a whole new level of responsibility and so, I guess I am a little nervous,” she said.

One thing she is not concerned about is the use of technology.

“A lot of older physicians struggle with a computer, but it’s all I’ve really known,” she said.

As she begins her medical practice, Mario Fatigati has some advice for his daughter: “You have to do right by the people who live here.”